From writer-director Hannah Fidell (A Teacher, 6 Years) and co-writer Carson Mell ("Silicon Valley," "Tarantula") comes a comedy of transformation, discovery and maturity set on the road between Austin and Los Angeles. When college-bound teenager Nat (Tony Revolori) offers itinerant 30-something mechanic Richard (Jason Mantzoukas) a ride during a stop-over in small-town Texas, neither one realizes the indelible impact each traveler will have on his respective journey. Nat, an aspiring photographer, is heading towards a bright future in art school in Los Angeles and wants to find the real America en route to new beginnings out West; Richard, a lovably unkempt motormouth, is simply looking for connection in the moment — and maybe a beer or ten — while he grapples with indecision, past mistakes and dead-ends. As they travel through the American Southwest, taking in picturesque towns and crossing paths with an assortment of old flames, fellow travelers, kooky cons, and good Samaritans, both passengers come alive through the myriad possibilities of the open road. Finding connection, comfort and chaos in their shared journey, this improbable and unforgettable screen duo forges an epic bond few will forget.

Like Webster's dictionary, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour are "Morocco-bound" in the third rollicking entry in their popular series of Road comedies. Survivors of a Mediterranean shipwreck, stowaways Jeff (Crosby) and Orville (Hope) paddle to a North African shore and hitch a camel ride across the desert to Morocco. In order to buy food, Jeff sells Orville into slavery – but Orville's owner turns out to be the luscious Princess Shalmar (Lamour), who quickly offers to become his wife. Unfortunately, the true reason for the Princess' proposal soon becomes clear. Her prophet has warned that her first husband will meet a violent death within days of their marriage! An Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay, Road to Morocco is highlighted by Bing's rendition of one of his best-loved songs, the unforgettable "Moonlight Becomes You."

Thunder Road follows a southern Police Officer (Jim Cummings) on his journey to raise his young daughter as a love letter to his late Mom. Heart-warming and hilarious, Jim struggles to cope with everyday life.

This film takes an intimate look at Jack Johnson's music and tour greening initiatives. When Jack goes on the road, he doesn't just show up and play music. The tour partners with local non-profits, local food vendors and strives to leave a lasting positive impact. The entire tour is an extension of the environmentally conscious and socially engaged life he leads along with his wife, Kim. After years on the road, playing venues around the globe, the Johnson's have established an inspiring way of touring with a focus on creating as little impact on the earth as possible. Along the way, the tour gives a platform to dozens of local non-profits working to educate and inspire others to make choices that benefit our communities and the greater global environment. While following Jack's 2014 west coast tour, this film highlights the Johnson's Kokua Hawaii Foundation, the All At Once campaign, and several non-profit partners and businesses focusing on plastic free initiatives and sustainable local food systems. Additionally, the film highlights the unique way in which tour is run. From traveling on biodiesel-powered buses, to sourcing organic and locally grown meals to carefully disposing of waste created along the way. The goal of the tour and this documentary is to inspire people to get involved, make the right choices, and enjoy the music along the way.

Herodotus Award winner for Best Historical Mystery "Kris Nelscott can lay claim to the strongest series of detective novels now being written by an American author." —Salon Who is Smokey Dalton? Private Investigator Smokey Dalton works for Memphis, Tennessee's black community. He has almost no interaction with the white hierarchy, even though they exist only blocks away. So he's surprised the day a white woman walks into his Beale Street office. Laura Hathaway has sought him out because he's a beneficiary in her mother's will, and Laura wants to know why. So does Smokey. He's never heard of the Hathaways, but his search will take him on a journey that will change everything he's ever known. Set against the backdrop of the strike and protests that will end with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, A Dangerous Road combines the politics of race, betrayal, unexpected love, and the terrible cost of trust. It's a story so memorable the Mystery Writers of America chose it as one of the top five novels of the year and the Historical Mystery Appreciation Society honored it as the winner of the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery. What the critics say: "Powerful stuff, with a role for every major black actor in Hollywood."— Kirkus Reviews "More than just offering a puzzle, this novel encourages self-examination about identity, responsibility and the consequences of choices. Smokey proves himself a man of conscience able to make tough choices." — Publishers Weekly "Nelscott's series setting, in the turbulent late '60s, gives her books layers of issues of racism, class, and war, all of which still seem to remain sadly timely today." — Oregonian "It's not hard to draw parallels between Nelscott's PI Smokey Dalton and Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins, another secretive, canny black man trying to solve mysteries while circumspectly navigating the white world. But Dalton's no knock-off. (Would you label the hundreds of hard-boiled detectives who've appeared in Raymond Chandler's wake mere Marlow Xeroxes because they're white?)" — Entertainment Weekly The Smokey Dalton books are "a high-class crime series." — Booklist Read the whole series of gripping novels: A Dangerous Road Smoke-Filled Rooms Thin Walls Stone Cribs War at Home Days of Rage Street Justice Awards for the series: The first Smokey Dalton novel, A Dangerous Road , won the Herodotus Award for Best Historical Mystery and was short-listed for the Edgar Award for Best Novel; the second, Smoke-Filled Rooms , was a PNBA Book Award finalist; and the third, Thin Walls , was one of the Chicago Tribune's best mysteries of the year. Kirkus chose Days of Rage as one of the top ten mysteries of the year and it was also nominated for a Shamus award for the Best Private Eye Hardcover Novel of the Year.&#xa0; Street Justice was nominated for a Shamus award for the Best Original Paperback P.I. Novel. Kris Nelscott is an open pen name used by New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch.&#xa0;

Country music singer Charlotte comes back home to Tennessee a week before she's set to get married, hoping to borrow her late mother's wedding dress from her grandmother. But when she runs into her high school sweetheart, Ray, sparks begin to fly. As emotions with Ray get complicated and her record label continues to pressure her to write a new hit song, Charlotte questions if she ever should have left Tennessee in the first place and if she's even marrying the right man.

The pastor of a local church was wearing his clerical collar while visiting his wife who was in the hospital for minor surgery. He stopped in to see
her and chatted with her for quite some time. Before leaving, he leaned down and gave his wife a great passionate kiss and left the room.

The woman in the next bed over stared in disbelief. After the pastor left, the stunned woman spoke to her roommate, “You know, I’ve been a faithful
member of my church all my life, but my pastor has never even come close to treating me as well as yours does!”

In this raunchy comedy, Josh (Breckin Meyer), a student at a college in Ithaca, NY, videotapes his one-night stand with beautiful sorority girl Beth (Amy Smart). A few days later, Josh discovers that one of his friends accidentally mailed the homemade porn tape to his girlfriend, Tiffany (Rachel Blanchard), who is spending some time with her family in Austin, TX. Josh and his friends Barry (Tom Green), Kyle (D.J. Qualls), E.L. (Seann William Scott), and Rubin (Paulo Costanzo) borrow a car and hit the road in a desperate bid to intercept the tape before Tiffany loads it into her VCR; Beth, however, wants Josh for herself and has her own plans to track down Tiffany.

Tulio (Kevin Kline), Miguel (Kenneth Branagh) and their hilarious horse Altivo are in search of treasure on the legendary Lost City of Gold when they are mistaken for gods and lavished with riches beyond their wildest dreams. As friendship, loyalty and greed collide, they must make the decision of their lives: run off with the gold, or face risks and dangers to save the people of El Dorado!

Fake Taxi is proud to present Road Thrills. Stella is a pretty exchange student from Italy who thought her student ID card would give her a discount on the fare. Lexi is a horny free-spirit who dares the driver to choose between his money or a good fuck. Charisse is an unemployed hottie who is desperate for a job and ready to earn a ride in the cab. Ashley catches the driver spying on her when she stops to pee, and gets turned on by his pervy voyeurism. A journey in the Fake Taxi is always a thrilling ride, so sit back, buckle-up and get ready to enjoy some fantastic hidden-camera fucking.

Love’s Kitty is back with the best black girl-girl movie today! We have brought the prettiest talent to your door. Covergirls Teanna Trump and Harley Dean will melt you as soon as you see them, both are pretty much 10’s! When they get together Teanna shows Harley how to dance that ends with licking her wet pretty pussy in 7 different positions! Harley loves it so much they are still going out together today! Alliee Cat and Deziree Monroe are cute school girls on their way home when Deziree shows Alliee her twerk video! After Alliee sees how big and beautiful her ass is, she wants a taste and bammmm they make love on the couch! Kelly and Ashton will finish your day so nicely! First off, Ashton is a one in a million 18 year old with great tits popping out like torpedoes and a face similar to an angel! When she is spraying down Kelly with her squirt gun, she points it at her pussy and then licks up the water/juices! They fuck at the pool in a sizzling scene! Plus more lovely black lesbian action! With Love "Meow"

'The Road to Red Rocks' consists of official live footage directed and shot by FRED & NiCK at two sold out concerts at the beautiful amphitheatre set amongst the Red Rocks of Colorado, USA. In addition to the stunning live footage, are exclusive interviews and footage with the band recorded whilst on Gentlemen of the Road touring circuit.

Acclaimed stand-up comedian Ben Bailey is America's most desired cabbie. As host of the Discovery Channel's "Cash Cab" and "Cash Cab After Dark," Bailey's following and popularity continues to grow. Now, in addition to his countless live performances and television appearances (including "30 Rock" and "The Tonight Show"), comes Ben Bailey's hilarious, debut stand-up video!

You are talking here about a classic Blues voice, grizzled and dark with a smoky edge to it. Not quite an American voice but utterly unlike the majority of Europeans who try and fail miserably.Music-News.com RSS feedJoin Group Chat!

Toward the tail end of last year, Damon Albarn was rumored to be working on songs for Adele’s new album in the midst of all of his ongoing concerns. But now that conversation around that record is swirling again, The Sun caught up with the Blur Frontman to talk about his feelings on the experience, which don’t really sound all that positive. “Adele asked me to work with her and I took the time out for her,” …News, reviews, interviews and more for top artists and albums – MSN Music
ADULT ENTERTAINMENT NEWS UPDATE:Gabby Love’s top pick! Click and enjoy!

When a mythical world threatens everything, an unlikely hero must join the battle… College senior Aaron Jace is ready to start life in the real world. After the unexpected death of his grandfather, Aaron finds an unbelievable note that will change his world. The unknowing descendent of an ancient and powerful family, Aaron is thrust into a struggle that began long ago and will reach across worlds to pull him into the fight. When he learns of the world of Safanar, it seems to be the stuff of legends: dragons, castles, and technologically-advanced cities. But it&apos;s as much a dream as it is a nightmare. Danger lurks in the shadows, and a demon sentinel named Tarimus wants to steal Aaron&apos;s power before he can learn his full potential. With the help of an imprisoned Safanarion guardian, two mystical swords, and a puzzling family heirloom, Aaron must journey from Earth to find the fabled land of his ancestors. It may be a path that&apos;s impossible to survive. The Road to Shandara is the first book in an epic fantasy series that features fast-paced action, compelling characters, and a breathtaking world that will make you want to snatch up the whole series. This is not your traditional fantasy novel. Grab the first book in your next fantasy series today!

Our marriage was the kind that everyone on the outside said they’d hoped their’s would be someday. We laughed and had fun, and generally enjoyed each other’s company. A few years and two kids later things changed. We changed. We didn’t change together. We very much changed apart and let it lie, just under the surface, while we ignored it. Then one night, on a treadmill in the gym at my work while watching a “Friends”, my inner voice screamed at me so loud I had to jump and put each foot on the side of the treadmill. “YOU DON’T LOVE HIM” it yelled. I heard it and I knew. I went home that night and he told me, as I walked in the door, that I looked like I’d just seen a ghost. That night, after the kids went to bed I calmly sat him down and told him. He was so mad at me. I told him that I knew I should love him and that I knew I sounded ridiculous, and that I was going to go see a therapist about it to sort it out. He was the perfect husband. My friends wished their husbands were like mine. I hated myself for not loving him. How could I be so selfish that someone who was so good to me wasn’t good enough for me?

Flash forward a few months and several therapy sessions later and I knew in my heart of hearts that I did not love him and he did not deserve to be married to someone who did not love him. I asked for a divorce. He reluctantly acquiesced and we, as a united front, came up with a plan for telling everyone in our lives as well as a plan for the future and for the future of our children. The entire time I planned on taking the high road. I was the one who wanted this and I needed to let my husband, soon to be ex-husband, get to a good place. If he’s happy, our kids will be happier. We live in Massachusetts. It’s a state, that if two people want to amicably divorce and come up with a plan that is fair and beneficial to everyone, the judge will grant it. We decided to officially split in June, took the summer off for the beach, then in September met with a mediator to work out our plan. We went before the judge in December and our divorce was granted. Throughout the process we each took the high road. It wasn’t always easy and when he derailed a bit, I just took it, and later, without my prompting, he sat me down and apologized to me for his behavior. It meant the world to me. We decided, because we both work and are both highly employable, that we would not do alimony or child support. We each contribute the same amount to a joint account which pays for childcare, sports, college funds and camp for our children. We easily came up with a 50/50 schedule (I’m Monday, Tuesday, he’s Wednesday, Thursday and we each take every other Friday, Saturday, Sunday). We live about three miles apart. The plan works for us.

A few months after we split, but before we were officially before the judge to divorce, he connected with someone in a way he didn’t think possible. For the first time in a long time, he was happy. She was extremely open minded. 4 years later they are still together and she is a legitimate member of our team. Often times people asked if I was upset he met someone so soon after we split, or if he’d really been with her long before. I laughed at that. Are you kidding? I didn’t love him anymore, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve to be loved. She’s amazing to my children and they truly love her. At our children’s sporting events we all stand together and cheer them on. Our kids are happy, healthy, thriving, and extremely comfortable in our family environment. So why did we take the high road again? For them. Everything is for them.

I urge you, if you are thinking of splitting, or are already in the process, have some empathy. For your partner. For your children. It’s not an easy process and too often people selfishly act out on their partners. Imagine, if you are a child, loving your parents so much, but knowing that the two people you love the most absolutely hate each other? It’s too much for children to bear. Sometimes people are happy together forever. More often, they grow…differently, and a change needs to be made. It’s not their fault. It’s not your fault. It’s life. And life is ever changing. Don’t be afraid of the unknown. The high road may seem impossibly long, but I assure you, you’ll be thankful in the end. Approach everything with love and empathy. Life is easy after that.

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From director George Miller, originator of the post-apocalyptic genre and mastermind behind the legendary "Mad Max" franchise, comes "Mad Max: Fury Road," a return to the world of the Road Warrior, Max Rockatansky. Haunted by his turbulent past, Mad Max (Tom Hardy) believes the best way to survive is to wander alone. Nevertheless, he becomes swept up with a group fleeing across the Wasteland in a War Rig driven by an elite Imperator, Furiosa (Charlize Theron). They are escaping a Citadel tyrannized by the Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), from whom something irreplaceable has been taken. Enraged, the Warlord marshals all his gangs and pursues the rebels ruthlessly in the high-octane Road War that follows.

I did a column here last week about keeping our hair looking great in high humidity. We run into that ‘wall of water’ when we land in Miami, for example, or New York City in August … “Oh, man!” Hot and wet!

Part of the solution is that you just have to surrender some of that control. It is so difficult to keep the look you created in L.A. when you step off the plane in Atlanta. Depending on our natural hair, it can go flat and limp or wildly curly and frizzy.

I recently traveled and forgot my conditioner and thought, “no big deal. How bad could hotel products be?” Well, they can be harsh on hair and, “yes,” they smell absolutely delicious and they suds-up like none other but be careful. Sometimes products with suds use a lot of sulfates, which can be hard on hair, especially if your hair has been chemically treated for a perm or coloring.

• My suggestion is to take travel-size products with you from home. Go to your favorite drug store and buy the small, plastic, airplane-approved, 3.4 oz. bottles and put your trusted products in them.

• When you head for another city, always pack a selection of hair accessories, including barrettes, which are trending strong, and ponytail holds and favorite hair clips. These are incredibly useful in taming hair when you’ve already tried hair mousse and gels. The variety of styles and availability is better than ever. Ponytails, buns and other updos work in virtually every environment from the boardroom to the gym. When you hit that wave of high humidity, a ponytail is a great way to go in a slick-back wet look.

• Humidity and free bath samples aren’t the only risks when traveling. Water is different everywhere. Some is soft and some is hard with lots of minerals. Those minerals can leave deposits on your hair, changing the texture or feel. Using your quality products from home can help this a lot. When you get home, detox your hair, wash it with a clarifying shampoo or a mix of baking soda and water. This will strip the hair of mineral build-up. Then apply a deep, penetrating mask or deep conditioner and let it sit on your hair for a good amount of time … Your hair will love you for it!

Remember, you can’t beat the weather, and you don’t pick the water coming out of the shower, so be flexible and patient out of town.

As always, be open to change!

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

(AllHipHop News) Bryan “Birdman” Williams may have told Power 105’s Angie Martinez he was not involved in the shooting that left Lil Wayne’s tour bus riddled with bullets, but the man currently in custody for the crime reportedly says the Cash Money Records head played a role in the incident.

Jimmy Winfrey claims in new court docs he shouldn’t be singled out for the crime, when “[Birdman’s] financial dispute with [Lil Wayne] is what ultimately led to the shooting.”

So, Winfrey argues, “[Birdman] should be held liable as a party to the crime.” He’s not specifically saying Birdman ordered the hit, but essentially that’s what he’s saying.

Winfrey (aka PeeWee Roscoe) was employed as Atlanta rapper Young Thug’s road manager. A Cobb County, Georgia indictment in the Winfrey case named both Thug and Birdman as possible co-conspirators in a plot to kill Wayne.

Neither Birdman nor Young Thug have been formally charged in connection to the tour bus shooting in Atlanta. Last week Birdman denied he would ever try to harm the man he refers to as his “son.”

“That’s like the craziest sh*t I ever heard in my life,” said Birdman about the allegations he tried to have Wayne murdered. “I’m passionate about my family, my kids, and my life. Nothing means more to me.”

Zombies invade the Australian Outback in this brain-splattered, Mad Max-meets-the-undead thrill ride. When an apocalyptic event turns everyone around him—including his wife and daughter—into marauding zombies, everyman mechanic Barry arms himself to the teeth, soups up his car, and hits the road in order to rescue his sister from a deranged, disco-dancing mad doctor. Bursting with high-octane car chases, crazy-cool homemade weaponry, and enough blood-and-guts gore to satisfy hardcore horror fans, WYRMWOOD takes the zombie flick to bone-crunchingly berserk new heights.

'The Road to Red Rocks' consists of official live footage directed and shot by FRED & NICK at two sold out concerts at the beautiful amphitheatre set amongst the Red Rocks of Colorado, USA. In addition to the stunning live footage, are exclusive interviews and footage with the band recorded whilst on Gentlemen of the Road touring circuit. The live set includes old favourites 'Little Lion Man' & 'The Cave' amongst newer tracks such as 'I Will Wait' & 'Whispers in the Dark' from the band's Number 1 album 'Babel'.

Love’s Kitty is back with the best black girl-girl movie today! We have brought the prettiest talent to your door. Covergirls Teanna Trump and Harley Dean will melt you as soon as you see them, both are pretty much 10’s! When they get together Teanna shows Harley how to dance that ends with licking her wet pretty pussy in 7 different positions! Harley loves it so much they are still going out together today! Alliee Cat and Deziree Monroe are cute school girls on their way home when Deziree shows Alliee her twerk video! After Alliee sees how big and beautiful her ass is, she wants a taste and bammmm they make love on the couch! Kelly and Ashton will finish your day so nicely! First off, Ashton is a one in a million 18 year old with great tits popping out like torpedoes and a face similar to an angel! When she is spraying down Kelly with her squirt gun, she points it at her pussy and then licks up the water/juices! They fuck at the pool in a sizzling scene! Plus more lovely black lesbian action! With Love "Meow"

Love’s Kitty is back with the best black girl-girl movie today! We have brought the prettiest talent to your door. Covergirls Teanna Trump and Harley Dean will melt you as soon as you see them, both are pretty much 10’s! When they get together Teanna shows Harley how to dance that ends with licking her wet pretty pussy in 7 different positions! Harley loves it so much they are still going out together today! Alliee Cat and Deziree Monroe are cute school girls on their way home when Deziree shows Alliee her twerk video! After Alliee sees how big and beautiful her ass is, she wants a taste and bammmm they make love on the couch! Kelly and Ashton will finish your day so nicely! First off, Ashton is a one in a million 18 year old with great tits popping out like torpedoes and a face similar to an angel! When she is spraying down Kelly with her squirt gun, she points it at her pussy and then licks up the water/juices! They fuck at the pool in a sizzling scene! Plus more lovely black lesbian action! With Love "Meow"

Two-time Academy Award® winner Tom Hanks stars as Michael Sullivan, a father fighting to keep his only son from traveling the Road to Perdition. Directed by Oscar® winner Sam Mendes (American Beauty), this towering motion picture achievement has been acclaimed by audiences and critics alike. Also starring Academy Award® winner Paul Newman and Oscar® nominee Jude law, Road to Perdition weaves a mesmerizing tale of a father and son bound together by tragedy and betrayal. On an unforgettable journey of honor, vengeance and redemption, they confront overwhelming odds – and forge an indestructible bond. Hailed for the powerhouse performances of its stars and the stunning impact of its story, Road to Perdition is an electrifying experience that will stay with you for a lifetime.

On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac&apos;s years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, &quot;a sideburned hero of the snowy West.&quot; As &quot;Sal Paradise&quot; and &quot;Dean Moriarty,&quot; the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac&apos;s love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance. Kerouac&apos;s classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be &quot;Beat&quot; and has inspired every generation since its initial publication.

Patrick Swayze stars in this sexy thriller from the producer of Die Hard and the Matrix. Co-starring Ben Gazzara (The Thomas Crown Affair), Kelly Lynch (Charlie's Angels) and Sam Elliott (We Were Soldiers), Road House delivers no-holds-barred action that pushes the envelope for high-octane thrills! Swayze is Dalton, a legendary bouncer who comes to Jasper, Missouri, for a special purpose: to restore order at the notorious Double Deuce Bar. In one spectacular fight after another, Dalton rids the bar of thugs and henchmen. But when he runs afoul of a ruthless crime boss (Gazzara) who controls the town, the stage is set for a blistering showdown that'll leave only one man standing!

2012 was the end of the world. All society and civilizations fell, leaving the survivors to fend for themselves. Few made it. In Book One Samantha After being taken from her Seattle office at gunpoint during the apocalypse, Samantha&apos;s chopper crashes and she is taken hostage by the Cruz brothers. Abused and hurting, to get her life back, she has to take theirs and learns a harsh lesson in survival. Kenn/Cadet Kenn and the cadet were missed in the evacuations and instead of heading home for the boy&apos;s pregnant mom, the Marine heads them for NORAD, sure the timid little woman he&apos;d controlled for so long, couldn&apos;t have survived the end of the world. These two are picked up by Safe Haven Mobile Refugee Camp and the Marine quickly begins building himself a place among these strong survivors. Angela/Brady Angela lost her baby in the war and that pain forced her to face the awful truth. Without using her gifts, those forbidden powers that have kept her chained to Kenn for more than ten years, she will never see her teenage son again. Forced to wait for her body to heal before she can start her quest, Angie calls out to her son&apos;s real father, Brady. They are reunited in the post apocalyptic remains of Indiana and it&apos;s clear that the sparks are still there. Adrian Adrian has a secret that no one knows and he struggles to keep it hidden even as he risks everything to gather his flock. He is a Leader, a Patriot, and there&apos;s nothing he won&apos;t do in his quest to keep some of his Country alive. Even kill. Cesar/Rick Rick is a traitor. He belongs to the leader of a group of Mexican Guerilla&apos;s that are intent on destroying what&apos;s left of the post apocalyptic United States. Cesar leads these ruthless killers, sending Rick into camps of refugees as his spy, before murdering the men and taking the women hostage. Cesar hates America and heads up Interstate 25 like an end of the world plague. He thinks he is unstoppable but already, there&apos;s a nagging worry that the forces of fate have something planned. For now, though, his reign of terror goes unopposed. Mother Nature Angry at the callous indifference of humans, Mother Nature has called her creatures together for the apocalypse. Animal attacks and ambushes become common place and add yet another adventure these brave souls must face in their quest for survival. In Book Two More of the same adventure, romance, and danger that made book one so addictive. are you ready to return to Safe Haven? Adrian and the others are already there, waiting to tell you what happened next. Won&apos;t you join us?

Screen idol and Academy Award-winning superstar Mel Gibson ("Maverick," "Lethal Weapon" series) stars in this mythical futuristic tale from writer-director George Miller ("The Witches of Eastwick"). In this boxoffice winner and critical phenomenon, Mad Max joins forces with nuclear holocaust survivors to defend an oil refinery under siege from a ferocious, marauding horde that plunders the land for gasoline. The winner of five Australian Film Institute Awards, Newsweek calls this a "sensational slam-bang end-of-the-world picture." The New York Times says it's "an extravagant film fantasy…action packed…[and] extremely witty." "One of the year's 10 best," raves Time Magazine. Followed by "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" in this enormously successful film series.

Screen idol and Academy Award-winning superstar Mel Gibson ("Maverick," "Lethal Weapon" series) stars in this mythical futuristic tale from writer-director George Miller ("The Witches of Eastwick"). In this boxoffice winner and critical phenomenon, Mad Max joins forces with nuclear holocaust survivors to defend an oil refinery under siege from a ferocious, marauding horde that plunders the land for gasoline. The winner of five Australian Film Institute Awards, Newsweek calls this a "sensational slam-bang end-of-the-world picture." The New York Times says it's "an extravagant film fantasy…action packed…[and] extremely witty." "One of the year's 10 best," raves Time Magazine. Followed by "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" in this enormously successful film series.

If you were aware of the black market website, Silk Road, during its heyday at the top of the decade, then you were already one step closer to committing a felony. The online marketplace for heavy drugs such as heroin, cocaine and ecstasy amassed millions in revenue before being shut down in the November 2014.

Now, Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht has to answer for the multiple crimes, including at least one victim overdosing from the drugs being purchased, with a life sentence in prison.

Mr. Ulbricht, 31, was sentenced by the judge, Katherine B. Forrest, for his role as what prosecutors described as “the kingpin of a worldwide digital drug-trafficking enterprise.”

Mr. Ulbricht’s novel high-tech drug bazaar operated in a hidden part of the Internet sometimes known as the dark web, which allowed deals to be made anonymously and out of the reach of law enforcement. In Silk Road’s nearly three years of operation, over 1.5 million transactions were carried out involving several thousand seller accounts and more than 100,000 buyer accounts, the authorities have said.

Judge Forrest echoed that message. “What you did was unprecedented,” she told Mr. Ulbricht, “and in breaking that ground as the first person,” he had to pay the consequences. Anyone who might consider doing something similar, the judge added, needed to understand clearly “and without equivocation that if you break the law this way, there will be very serious consequences.”

Mr. Ulbricht was convicted in February on charges that included engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and distributing narcotics on the Internet, each of which carried potential life terms. The government had also alleged that he had solicited the murders of people he saw as threats to his operation, and that at least six deaths were attributable to drugs bought on the site.

At the hearing, the mother of one such victim and the father of another each delivered emotional statements to the judge. The father, identified as Richard, whose 25-year-old son had died after using heroin that prosecutors said was purchased on Silk Road, accused Mr. Ulbricht of being driven by greed in making drugs easily available to vulnerable people.

“I strongly believe that my son would be here today if Ross Ulbricht had not created Silk Road,” he said, adding, “All Ross Ulbricht cared about was his growing pile of bitcoins.”

A tearful Ulbricht expressed remorse for his actions at his sentencing but you know they say hindsight is always 20/20.

I was first exposed to director George Miller’s Mad Max series in 1987 when, at age seven, I watched the trilogy capper Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome during its premium cable run. I didn’t understand much of it at the time, but I loved it all the same. It wasn’t until several years later that I watched the preceding entries in the series, and they left even more of a mark. Especially the second one, The Road Warrior (a.k.a. Mad Max 2). Today, Miller’s post-apocalyptic playground remains as vivid and well-realized as when it debuted, and the franchise remains a favorite.

Thus, as the latest Max entry, Fury Road, moved through development hell, going from potentiality to actuality, with Miller himself at the helm to shepherd his creation once again, I tried very hard to keep my excitement level in check. After all, the last time a director named George brought back a beloved brand after an extended interregnum…well, things didn’t go so well. “Please,” I thought to myself, sending a silent prayer to the movie gods, “after The Phantom Menace, after the Planet of the Apes remake, after Superman Returns, after Indiana Jones, just give me this one.”

And by George, he’s done it. I waited twenty-eight years for Mad Max: Fury Road, and I’m so glad it’s not terrible.

Featuring Tom Hardy in the role that first launched Mel Gibson’s star into the stratosphere, Fury Road is a worthy addition to the canon, one that recognizes there was nothing wrong with the setting as established in the extant trilogy, and as such, there’s no need to follow the current Hollywood vogue of tearing the whole thing down in order to start from scratch. This is a continuation rather than a contradiction. More than that, it represents a welcome return by George Miller to the kind of anarchic action he hasn’t directed in the three decades since Thunderdome.

The story (by Miller, Brendan McCarthy, and Nick Lathourisy) is deceptively simple. Wandering the nuclear irradiated outback of near-future Australia, ex-cop Max Rockatansky is captured and held prisoner by minions of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), a despotic madman who hides his disfigured face and body behind ceremonial death’s head armor and uses his control of the limited water supply to keep his subjects duly chastened. When his trusted aide Furiosa (Charlize Theron) uses the occasion of a supply run to escape from his clutches along with several of his concubines (some of whom are in a family way), Max finds himself inadvertently drawn into the chase.

As with the previous Max movies, there isn’t any real attempt at serialization or continuity, but this is the same Max he’s always been. Sure, he may look and sound like Tom Hardy now, but as before, he’s still (despite his best efforts) the good guy who can’t help but help others, so we know where he’ll land in this particular conflict. What follows is an amped-up version of the final act chase sequence in 1981’s Mad Max 2. While that one impressively sustained its energy for twenty-some minutes, Fury Road broadens its scope, serving essentially a two-hour chase punctuated by occasional moments to catch one’s breath.

One of the narrative beauties of these films is the way they exist outside of time, where even the passage of literally decades between entries does nothing to diminish it feeling like part of a contiguous whole with its predecessors. The events of the nuclear exchange that serve as backstory for the Mad Max universe are so vague as to have occurred anywhere and anywhen. What’s left then is the madcap anarchy that is this world, with Miller sprinkling details of life in nuked-out Australia in without context or explanation, leaving it for audiences to decipher their significance.

Such is the case with Fury Road. The bizarre stratification in Immortan Joe’s cultish organization is laid out for us quickly, almost as a throwaway, just enough so that we have a sense of who to root for and who to toss tomatoes at. In a way it’s even more impressive how well Miller and Co. are able to draw us in as the chase plays out. And speaking of the chase, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the effects. The glorious practical effects. In an age of increasing CGI overload, where every possible stunt we imagine can be realized in a computer’s hard drive, there’s no substitute for actual cars actually smashing into each another.

In terms of the cast, they’re standouts across the board. This marks Theron’s second appearance in a long-dormant franchise reboot (after 2012’s mezzo-mezzo Prometheus), and she gives her character just the right blend of viciousness and vulnerability to make her arc feel believable. X-Men‘s Nicholas Hoult also makes a memorable appearance as Nux, one of Immortan Joe’s foot-soldiers. And speaking of ol’ Joe, he’s a suitably menacing presence throughout, but thanks to his elaborate makeup and facial appliance, few will realize that he’s played by the same man who memorably portrayed Max’s very first baddie, the Toecutter, in the 1979 original.

Most importantly, we really have to talk about Tom Hardy and how perfect he is for this part. In the five years since he was first announced as the lead, Hardy’s profile has only risen, and I’m gratified that my initial enthusiasm for his selection has been completely borne out. Bear in mind, Miller had ostensibly bid adieu to this series back in ’85. Of course, rumors of a new installment never went away even as time passed. And when Miller finally felt moved to make Fury Road with Gibson in the early aughts, outside events intervened, with the outbreak of the Iraq war stymying plans to shoot in Morocco, delaying production, and ultimately leading Gibson to decide against reprising the role.

I remember following these developments in real time as they unfolded with a sense of increasing frustration that Max Rockatansky’s road back to the screen was becoming so fraught that it may never happen at all. But having experienced the version of Fury Road that we got, I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the daisy chain of interlocking Murphy’s Law scenarios that led us to this moment. While the thought of Gibson not playing Max was unthinkable once, untethering actor and character was the only option if the franchise was going to live again. And I can’t think of a better choice than Hardy to carry it forward. Mad Max is back! Was he ever gone? A

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As with most movie franchises currently being exhumed and slapped back into service, I grew up with the original Mad Max movies. My dad took me to see The Road Warrior (called Mad Max 2 in civilized countries) — which seemed particularly abstract, bizarre, and antipodean following our relatively straightforward excursions to Star Wars, Superman, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. (As a child I reviewed The Road Warrior in a notebook, puzzling hard over the logic of desert-dwelling punk rockers with no fuel — who nonetheless relentlessly drive around in search of fuel.) Then came 1985’s Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, with its Tina Turner hit “We Don’t Need Another Hero” — when it was blatantly obvious that “another hero” was precisely what the film’s characters needed. Wait — what?

So here we are, thirty years later (!), and I’ve viewed George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, and I’m thinking that what these movies are really about is simply creating a user-stimulating sensation, a triumph of form over function (unless the function is letting disenfranchised audience members feel crazy-manic-empowered for a couple of hours plus afterglow). The plot’s a wisp, the characters hazy (though they do talk a lot more than the director has suggested in interviews) — but then there’s that mega-gonzo action, action, ACTION!

Mad Max: The Legacy

(Courtesy of Warner Bros.)

Significantly, prior to Mad Max: Fury Road, I sat through 20 minutes of trailers (odd term, as they don’t “trail” anything anymore, plus it says “the following preview” right there on the screen) concerning either bludgeoning, apocalyptic stuff or the Vacation franchise terrifyingly morphing into the Hangover franchise. Shaking off that wearying blur, I dove straight into Max’s good ol’ “world of fire and blood” — and honestly my experience proved to be a clinical study: of iconography, of zeitgeist, of nostalgia, and especially of production design and this movie’s so-called (and by some dreaded) feminism.

Let’s address that claim: This movie features a corpulent chauvinist tyrant mysteriously named after a post-apocalyptic coffee drink: “Immortan Joe” (Hugh Keays-Byrne, the original Mad Max‘s totally mean “Toecutter”), and his bad boy is the root of all evil in Fury Road‘s rudimentary but utterly inoffensive Feminism 101 course. The gist? Ol’ Joe couldn’t be more of a pig, lording his natural spring water over his many wizened minions, while imprisoning lactating women on his milk farm (yes, really), plus of course keeping a harem of pretty young “breeder” wives. (As with Miller’s wonderful Happy Feet, Fury Road will impart basic biology to the youngsters, albeit harrowingly.) Joe is the kind of villain who’s so thick he needs to be told outright that people aren’t supposed to own other people — and judging by the fanged chastity belts his “wives” kick off during their diaphanous desert fashion shoot later on, Joe hasn’t much grasp on the whole fair-play concept of reality.

And that’s about it, really. Tough guys — if any of you are still bitching — this Mad Max movie is very, very, very macho. It’s mostly dumb-ass dudes ramming into other dumb-ass dudes, just like pro sports.

The only other aspect of lightweight feminism presented here is that the eponymous hero (Tom Hardy, unhindered by charisma) — who proves outrageously passive and even loses his phallic muscle car in the first minute or two — eventually kind of helps “Imperator Furiosa” (yet another badass cinematic kick-ass chick) save the aforementioned fashion models — mostly. In the movie’s only passage that slows down enough to tell a story, their rag-tag gaggle encounters a tiny matriarchal outpost in the desert, where senior women briefly discuss horticulture and stuff. Then the fugitives literally turn back toward their point of origin and do the same road-warrioring trek over again. Very macho. There is no pastel in this wasteland, save the day-for-night blue of the movie’s most brilliantly color-timed sequence. Repeat: This is not a “girl” movie; this is a girls-acting-like-guys movie — and even then, just a bit (for even Furiosa needs to be saved by a man).

That key performance comes from Charlize Theron, of course — she who has been throwing around the kick-ass-chick thing about as long and monotonously as Angelina Jolie — and here her Furiosa betrays very little emotion and scant backstory (saving that for her own sequel, perhaps). Watching her, mainly I wondered why her forehead mascara proves so inconsistent from shot to shot (just look: it’s always different). She protects the other women, which is great. But just like Max, there isn’t much more to say about her.

My takeaway? Incomparably hot action. Nice theme about liberating the oppressed. This movie’s “war boys” chanting “WAR BOYS!” in a manner suspiciously reminiscent of Duran Duran’s “Wild Boys” (though they actually resemble extras from creepy old Peter Gabriel videos). The villain is a patriarchal baddie who cannot function without a grotesque breathing apparatus (hmmm). Oh, and I’m pretty sure I briefly glimpsed a “landstrider.” Y’know, mainly I liked it. There’s a cinematic tradition being rekindled here — not just the Mad Max franchise, but going back at least as far as Steven Spielberg’s Duel, with its killer truck — a truck soon echoed of course in Spielberg’s Raiders, in Miller’s own The Road Warrior, and even in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. Following the miserable ’90s and too many joyless, humorless superhero movies, happily Mad Max: Fury Road gets the vocabulary of sensational cinema, and knows how to lay it out and blow it up. There’s a terrific comic-book sensibility to this film, which is high praise for the work of a seventy-year-old man. In contrast to that other George, I feel like this movie — with its blood, sweat and gears (and Tusken Raider Hell’s Angels) — is the proper spiritual sequel to the original Star Wars.

Tank Girl: You make post-apocalyptic torment fun!

Still, in the midst of those miserable ’90s emerged an anomaly, unjustly dismissed and largely forgotten — a dirty desert ride featuring an absolutely female protagonist, with wit and verve to burn. A movie worth buying, viewing, and contrasting to Fury Road. I’m speaking of course of Tank Girl by Rachel Talalay (lately directing Doctor Who) — one of my favorite films ever, and one strongly deserving mention here because, twenty years ago, Lori Petty’s titular Tank Girl already took Charlize Theron’s Furiosa to task, setting the standard for post-apocalyptic punk ladies, showing us how it’s done. It’s tough, the world has collapsed, there’s murder, there’s mayhem, and Malcolm McDowell’s utilities-obsessed villain even ups the water-tyrant ante by literally drinking people he doesn’t like. Interracial, kangaroo mutants, you name it — but there’s a key difference between Tank Girl and Fury Road, and it ain’t swapping budget Tucson for epic Namibia. It’s that Tank Girl herself — basically Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, and Mad Max rolled up together in pigtails and attitude — isn’t merely portraying the male’s wounded and beleaguered anima (look it up); rather, she’s got the good womanly sense to stare the apocalypse straight in the eye and turn it into a big, inclusive party! Perhaps we as an audience — and as a populace — aren’t ready for that free, fun, feisty female yet. But I hope we get there most hastily.

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It has been a multicultural week on the gala circuit: Monday at the Met, all eyes were on China’s enduring influence on fashion; last night at New York City Ballet’s Spring Gala, the spotlight was on Denmark, birthplace of the great nineteenth-century choreographer, August Bournonville. Known for his effervescent footwork and repertory rich in pantomime, Bournonville might seem a world away from the modernist compositions by George Balanchine, the visionary founder of NYCB. In the spirit of spring renewal, the evening’s anticipated premiere was a revival of the Dane’s 1836 story ballet, La Sylphide, and a crowd including Valentino Garavani, Elettra Wiedemann, Patti Smith, and Ansel Elgort arrived to take it all in.

“I have a soft spot for Romantic ballets,” confessed Indre Rockefeller in daffodil yellow Delpozo, looking every bit the former dancer she is. Justin Peck, the company’s wunderkind resident choreographer and a soloist, paused to underscore the importance of the classics. “I actually haven’t seen any of the rehearsals for the piece, so I’m excited to just sit back and be a spectator,” he said. Wiedemann glided by in blush pink Lanvin, and on her feet? “Lanvin—not pointe shoes, thankfully,” she said with a laugh, showing off a sparkly sandal with a sensible heel. Growing up, her mother, Isabella Rossellini, used to take her to the ballet every year; Olivia Palermo, who seemingly walked out of Botticelli’s Primavera in a botanical Valentino dress, also has a balletomane in the family. “My mother just came last night! She has season tickets.”

Moments later inside the David H. Koch Theater, the curtain rose to reveal the first piece on the program, Bournonville Divertissements, a tasting menu of buoyant, jump-heavy excerpts by the choreographer. After a brief intermission on the terrace with champagne and a waning sunset, it was time for La Sylphide, staged by the company’s Danish-born ballet master in chief, Peter Martins. Set in Scotland, the story centers on a tartan-clad cad (a triumphant Joaquin De Luz) who jilts his betrothed for a winged sylph (Sterling Hyltin); she arrives by window and departs (to chuckles from the audience) by chimney. Their love affair ends in tragedy when he wraps a scarf—secretly cursed by a witch—around his paramour, causing her to perish, her delicate wings fluttering to the ground.

Heavy stuff for a spring night, but the mood was light at the post-show dinner on the promenade. The ethereal Wendy Whelan, who retired last fall from the company and appears at the Joyce Theater later this month, gushed about Hyltin’s performance, adding, “It’s my birthday—48!” Andrew Rannells, in the midst of filming the fifth season of Girls, chatted with Tiler Peck, a City Ballet principal whose husband, Robert Fairchild, stars in Broadway’s An American in Paris. “He plays the role that Gene Kelly did in the film,” Garavani explained. “I’m going to see it next week!” And with that, like a corps of winged sylphs, the guests dispersed into the night.

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, a very rainy Hollywood evening set the stage for the premiere of Mad Max: Fury Road. As action-packed as the movie was, it didn’t outshine the equally exciting red carpet. Hollywood veteran and star Charlize Theron shed her movie look and opted for a clean black and white dress, while newcomer costar Zoë Kravitz looked elegant in a Valentino gown, paired well with her signature braids. The biggest surprise of the night was when original Mad Max star, Mel Gibson, came out to show his support for the newest chapter of the legacy. As guests filed into the theater, Riley Keough in a leather dress, stopped for a few selfies with fans, then joined Abbey Lee, in a Balmain jumpsuit, inside.

As the credits rolled, the night was just beginning. Guests ventured across the street for the after-party, where in one corner, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley stunned in a sparkling Rodarte skirt and top. Across the room, costar Nicholas Hoult was seen laughing and talking amongst friends. Mad Max’s star-studded cast definitely failed to disappoint, both on the screen and on the carpet.

After an incident involving insubordinate behavior lands Danielle out of a job, she takes Tim’s advice and meets with her manager, Michelle, to try and make it right. Can she tone down her bad attitude enough to win Michelle over and get her job back?

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When Miss Robbie Montgomery, a 1960s backup singer and former “Ikette,” suffered a collapsed lung and had to stop singing, she decided to pour her talents into another creative venture—a soul food restaurant called Sweetie Pie’s. . This docuseries follows the loud, loving and often singing Montgomery family as they work to expand their empire, one soulful dish at a time.

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“Ice Road Truckers” star Tim Zickuhr ﻿didn’t convince a judge the woman he allegedly tied up and threw in a closet was not a prostitute but a flaky friend, because he was just convicted of kidnapping. TMZ broke the story … cops say last…

TP: I think I do what I’ve always done. I’m kind of plugged in, kind of receptive, kind of on the lookout for something that needs to be a song, something that can become a song. It can be anything from a trivial whim or a serious theme that I think that I owe to myself to try to write. Or it could be just a sure pleasure of making something up. For example, one of my very favorite songs on the album is “Suzy Most Of All.” You can’t get much more lightweight than that, but I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed writing a song as much as I enjoyed writing that one. I just let myself be free to write what I call “Jump rope rhymes,” which don’t have to make any sense at all. Another model for that song was “Green Green Rocky Road” that Len Chandler and Bob Kaufman wrote so many years ago, that Dave Van Ronk sang so beautifully, you know the one I mean. It’s in Inside Llewyn Davis. That song has some of the most sublimely ridiculous verses. “I go by Baltimore, need no carpet on my floor,” I mean, come on! But it’s perfect. So I availed myself of that freedom to write something like “English muffin/Texas toast,” basically ’cause why not?

MR: That “why not” part is so important. People so often look at singer-songwriter lyrics and say, “Hope these words are better than your last!” It seems like a big responsibility for a singer-songwriter always to be “profound.”

TP: I retired from the avatar business a long time ago. People are responsible for their own damn lives. I don’t have any great advice for them on how to live their lives. All I’m doing is writing songs. I’m not even writing songs for the market, not that there’s anything wrong with doing that. I have good friends who write for the market and that’s perfectly okay, but I don’t have that knack. Every song of mine that has ever been a hit is a song that I basically wrote for myself to sing and somebody else heard it and recorded it very successfully. That’s as close as I’ve come to being a market writer. I’m really more like an amateur who gets lucky now and then.

MR: But don’t forget those people that are camping on your doorstep until you make that next album.

TP: Well, when I have enough good stuff, that’s when there will be another good album. I’m writing a little better right now, so I think maybe it won’t be as long between albums. I don’t know what’s going to happen, because I’m going to stop touring in November. I don’t know what will happen then about the urge to write. At least one of the major impulses or reasons to write is the fear of being seen to have become totally out of touch. I have a need to have some quality new material when I’m out there in concert. When I’m not touring anymore, I don’t know how I’ll feel then. I think I will continue to write, but it’s going to be a new area for me.

MR: It’s pretty inconceivable that someone as conscious as you couldn’t find something you just have to write about.

TP: It’s like the saying, “Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.” I have been very fortunate to have a performing life during very interesting years. I could’ve stood a little less interest, actually, as many of us could. I don’t know how I’m going to feel when I’m not out there all the time as I have been for fifty five years. I’ll continue to perform, I’m just not going to tour anymore.

MR: It’s almost like a supreme court justice. You’re in for life. [laughs]

TP: Well I frequently think of myself in those terms. [laughs] I’m wearing a robe right now, as a matter of fact.

MR: Send the selfie. [laughs] Hey, you’ve got some great company on this album, John Prine, Janis Ian, Dave Palmeroy, Al Perkins…

TP: These are the best. With Prine you pick up the phone and say, “Look, I need some help here, I’m sinking fast, so come and sing a song with me.” Not only does he come and sing a song with me, he buys me dinner. He’s a great guy. About ten years ago my wife and I went to go see him and Iris Dement at The Wolf Trap here in Washington. We were sitting out there and I turned to her and I said, “You know what? I’ve known John for twenty five years and this is the first time I’ve ever had a chance to sit out front and see him do a whole show. What a major treat that was. He’s another one of these “nobody like ’em” artists. There’s nobody like Prine. The song he’s on is such a goofy song, it’s just perfect for him to come and sing on it.

MR: How did the Janis Ian piece come together?

TP: I’ve known Janis since she was thirteen. We’ve been doing shows together for the last couple of years. In March and April we’ll be basically on tour here in the states doing a bunch of shows together. That’s a lot of fun for me because it’s not your typical split bill, we actually take the stage together and stay together on stage and sing on one another’s songs, et cetera. It makes for a very different and very entertaining evening, for us as well as–one hopes–The audience.

MR: What do you guys admire about each other?

TP: Well, it starts from the human perspective, I just love Janis. She’s a sassy, strong, strong-willed person who has not had an easy path, unless one thinks that having a hit at fifteen and being washed up at sixteen is an easy path. She’s had a hard way to go and she’s a strong person and a great guitar player. Matter of fact, we have a little fun with that fact in the show, that she is such a great guitar player and I’m merely adequate. There’s room for fun there. We’ve known each other for so long and we talked about doing some shows, so finally she said, “Well, put up or shut up, let’s do it.” So we did and we’re doing it.

MR: Who are the new troubadours? You may not be the avatar anymore, but the message still has to get out there, no?

TP: When it comes to asking where it’s going to come from and from whom, the one thing we can be sure of is that it will come from some place unexpected and from no one we’ve ever heard of before. It just doesn’t move along in nice, orderly ways. Like everybody else, I feel a lack of social commitment in young artists, but I’m not about to criticize them. They’re finding their own way. They’re doing their own thing and in their own time they will direct their attention to the areas that we did. It isn’t the same, but we don’t have a draft anymore. Does anyone realize what a massive change that is? We don’t have a draft, young people don’t graduate from high school with being dragged off to war as part of their immediate future. Believe me, that fact will color your attitude a lot.

MR: And now, of course, I think of your anthem, “Wonder Where I’m Bound.”

TP: I’ve sung that at a few graduations.

MR: It’s a great anthem for old people and young people. And speaking of young people, what advice do you have for new artists, oh non-avatar?

TP: It sounds as if I’m being flippant, but what I tell young people when they ask me what to do is so simple and so difficult–get good. Work at your craft. Take guitar lessons, for God’s sake. Too many young artists play really crappy guitar, and it kills you. You have to at least support your music with your instrument. At least don’t hurt it. Maybe don’t take voice lessons, but maybe some voice coaching. I had some voice coaching which made a huge difference in my singing. I don’t have a trained voice. Voice lessons are almost counter productive. Voice lessons for someone with my kind of barely average equipment has you trying to do things you can’t do and hurting yourself in the process. Some vocal coaching on the other hand is dealing with what you have and helping you make the most of that, and that’s really worth doing. In other words, work at your craft. I don’t write every day now, but I did then. I can’t recommend that highly enough. Write something every damn day so that you’re working at it and studying other artists and other artists whose work you love. Ask yourself, “What is it about their work that I love so much? Why is he or she so important to me?” These are things that they should be asking if they want to get ahead, if they want to improve.

MR: That’s a great answer.

TP: And here’s my other big piece of advice, for writers: They want to know, “How do you get ideas?” I tell them what I do myself: Look around you. If you need stimulation, pick up a paper, look at the paper for anything that moves you in any way. It can be to hilarity, it can be to rage or sorrow, but you’re bound to find a story in that paper that moves you in some way and then write a song from the point of view of either an eyewitness or a participant. This will take you out into the world, writing about the world, holding a mirror up to nature as Shakespeare put it, and above all it’ll get you away from writing all those God damned relationship songs that no one cares about. I tell you what, in my shows these days and for many years now there have been maybe one or two relationship songs, but only a couple. The rest of the songs are about a world that we share. Songs that people identify with because we’ve all seen this stuff happen. I wrote a song as a participant in the twin towers. I wrote a song from the point of view of a survivor. I wasn’t there, that’s not me. I’m using the first person singular but I’m imagining it. That’s what I’m suggesting people do. It can also be silly stuff. First person, not you. It’s not that hard to grasp once you grasp it. You’re writing about not you, you’re writing about us.

MR: Why, you could give a seminar on this, my friend!

TP: I do! I enjoy talking to people about songwriting.

MR: Do you feel that as a songwriter you’ve evolved in tangible ways? You can point out, “I went from here to here?”

TP: Yeah, I can tell. I don’t think I’ve changed as a writer, but I hope I’ve deepened as a writer.

MR: Can you pick that up in other people’s works, like Janis or John?

TP: I’m sure I could. I can’t do it as I sit here right now, I’d have to think about that, but I’m utterly sure that I would find that if I looked for it. In Janis’ work there is still the same kind of concern as there was in Society’s Child. That, by the way, is a very sophisticated melody that she wrote at the age of fifteen. She writes similarly but more profoundly now. I think I would find that in all of the writers I admire. The writers I admire are legion in number.

MR: You’ve seen the whole parade, from Pete Seeger to now.

TP: So much so that I would claim that if not for Pete Seeger, none of this would’ve happened. If that man had not criss-crossed the country singing at every union hall, every college campus, every summer camp throughout the fifties and sixties, none of it would’ve happened. He was the reason that it really came alive. He was the one who turned on my generation so that hundreds and even thousands of us said, “I’ve got to do that. That’s what I want to do. That’s what I have to do.” When I heard The Weavers At Carnegie Hall in ’57, I went from someone who loved folk music to someone who literally had to do it. I was not alone. Peter Yarrow was at that Carnegie Hall concert. He had the same epiphany that I did. “I have got to do this. This is me.”

MR: Beyond Redemption Road, I’m wondering where you’re bound.

TP: [laughs] Probably out for dinner. I’m bound for exactly where I’ve been. More of the same, but less of the same. There’s nothing different I want to do. I’m loving being with my grandsons. I have three grandsons and they’re all here, close to me. That’s an endless, endless joy for me. I lost my wife last year and I’m not doing well at all about that, but I don’t know who does. You do what you can do and you face what you have to face. I’m quieter than I was. I stay at home a lot. I have my daughters who have just been incredible. They call every day and come over. My younger daughter Kate lives in the same complex I live in. She likes to cook for me on weekends and I graciously accept. “More food? Oh no!” [laughs]

MR: Boy, wasn’t it a great time you all had together? How magical was that?

TP: It was magical. I miss so many people so badly, but that’s life.

MR: Do you recognize that you’re an icon?

TP: No. I deny it.

MR: Is that because you’re comparing yourself to other iconic figures?

TP: I don’t really compare myself, because I’m not going to look good if I do. [laughs] You know the poet Billy Collins? He’s fabulous. One of my Christmas presents was a book of his stuff. He has a figure in one of his pieces about going “Down the treacherous halls of high school,” and it just grabbed me. I just read it yesterday and I went back and looked it up again today. “The treacherous halls of high school.” What better adjective could you possibly find for high school than “treacherous?” I mean, the shit that happened in those halls. The damage to our psyches in those god damned halls of high school. [laughs] I don’t know what got me off on that but I just love that choice of adjective. Where were we? Oh, do I realize I’m an icon? No. I know that there are people, God bless them, who have really taken my music and made it their own, and I’m eternally grateful to that. That’s what I set out to do.

I wanted to make a difference in some positive way, and the way I found I could do that possibly was by creating songs. So the kind of songs that I created tend to be the kind of songs that people sing at camps and sing-a-longs, they’re not a string of hits or anything like that, but they are songs that have mattered to people and I’m very grateful for that. And I’m proud of it! I’m proud that I hung in there and kept writing my kinds of songs and had a wonderful time performing them. I’ve been a ham since the second grade in Chicago when I played Uncle Sam and they applauded and I thought, “God, I like that. I’ll have some more of that, please.” So I’m still Uncle Sam all these years later.

MR: Well, I am awed that you gave me an interview. You’ve made such wonderful contributions. If you don’t want to look at yourself as an icon at least look at yourself as someone who’s inspired many people. I think the culture owes you one.

Howard Jones: I’m coming up to my sixtieth birthday and I wanted to challenge myself to something that I’d never done before and really push myself to do something special. I was thinking, “What do people love to do these days? They love to go to shows.” There’s not so much interest in recorded music, but people love to go to a show. So I was thinking, “How can I make an incredibly immersive, visceral experience with all the things that I love all mashed up together?” I love classical music, electronic music, pop music, cinema, contemporary dance, ballet and philosophy. I wanted to bring that all together into a live experience that the audience are very much involved in, so it’s built into it that they’ve got a role to play in the performance. I know that’s a lot of stuff to throw at you, but that’s where it all comes from.

MR: And I just know that phone apps, customized clothing and florescent makeup have something to do with this. Howard, what do phone apps, customized clothing and florescent makeup have to do with this?

HJ: Obviously, I start with the music, but I didn’t want it to have the same kind of form as a normal pop song, so I was kind of liberated from that. I was able to have different, more expansive musical structures. I worked with my friend Steven Taylor on the visuals that go with the show. As I was writing the music, we were trading ideas about how the visual should be. I wanted to have a ballet sequence in there, I wanted some of my passion for Steve Wright music in there and contemporary dance, so we filmed all of those things and came up with a concept in tandem with writing the music. Then the third big element is how to involve the audience as well, so I thought in this day and age everyone’s got a smart phone, we can use apps to broadcast things from the stage. That’s what we’ll be doing in these two shows. The most exciting development for me is that I’ve got my own app now, my own Engage app.

MR: What have you been doing over the last few years in addition to the new Engage concept?

HJ: Every three to five years, I do a new project. The last thing I did was an entirely acoustic album with a string quartet and a big choir. I wanted to write some intimate songs. The album before that was a very electronic album. I’ve tried to mix things up and follow what I’m really feeling at the time.

MR: You’re exploring the analog world with elements like ballet and philosophy to supplement your performances. How do you view the relationship between technology and, well, everything else?

HJ: One of the things of Engage is, “Okay, it’s great that we’ve got all of this amazing technology, but if we don’t watch it we’ll all just end up in a room on our own doing everything virtually.” One of the things of Engage is to remember that the best thing that we can do as a human being is to have face-to-face communication and dialog and interaction. Technology is great. For instance, this morning, I composed a piano solo for a Norwegian guy who was in Thailand. We did it over Skype. I interviewed him and had a dialog with him and then we composed the piece of music. That’s what we can do with technology, but we have to remember that the best thing is when we’re face-to-face. Let’s use technology to bring people together and not separate them.

MR: To be engaged in life.

HJ: Exactly.

MR: Engage has the implication of activating a machine, but really what you’re saying is it’s important to use technology to assist human engagement, not replace it.

HJ: I completely agree. I passionately believe in that, and that’s really the theme of Engage. But at the same time, we’ve got this wonderful technology, let’s use it. Let’s use it in a way that brings people together and excites their imaginations and points out all the great possibilities. That’s my thinking.

MR: As opposed to, “Oh my God, one day technology is going to rule us all!”

MR: So you’ll have new material that’s associated with Engage but will you also feature older material?

HJ: Engage is a standalone piece that lasts for about thirty five minutes of continuous music. In fact, the release of it which is coming in February is one continuous piece, thirty five minutes long with transitions between the pieces. You’ll be able to download the individual tracks as well, but the actual work is the visuals and the music all together and it takes you on a journey for thirty five minutes. That’s the idea.

MR: Are you interested in revisiting your catalog in a way similar to Engage?

HJ: I’m only doing very few shows with Engage, and then the second half will be a retrospective of my previous work. I’m always trying to reinvigorate that. If you take “New Song,” the very first one, there’s a lot of it that’s out of time. I’ve corrected that now and it’s in the pocket. Also with the technology we have now we can make things sound so good live, there’s no excuse for it not being a good mix live.

MR: Do you occasionally have that thought, “What was I thinking? How come I didn’t hear this then?”

HJ: When I go back to those first two albums, it was just the limitations of the technology, really. The bass lines were played, most all of it was played, the drums were programmed and a few sequences were programmed, but the majority of it was played, so there’s going to be a bit of looseness there. Trying to sync everything up in those days was a nightmare, and it was a bit hit and miss. It still happens. Because we’re always trying to push the boundaries of the things we do live, things do crash. You just have to take it on the chin and find a way around.

MR: Some artists program their productions so intensely that you can’t picture it ever becoming a living, breathing song. Do you feel that some of your songs have benefited over the years from being removed from their original, programmed arrangements?

HJ: I’m very much into that. I sometimes do solo acoustic shows where I just play the songs at the piano, which is their most basic form. That really sheds a new light on them. Then also I work with my guitarist as a duo, or I’ve done things with brass sections and big acoustic bands that give a new life to the songs. I think it’s very important to do that, otherwise one loses interest in it oneself. Even with the electronic setup I very much try to mash things up together and create new sections and allow the music to have a life of its own. I’m not going to slavishly stick to the original recording.

MR: There are a lot of artists who feel that the original recording is the painting, but there are also those who feel like the composition continues to evolve as a growing child.

HJ: I don’t think I’m at the sort of extreme end of that thinking, because I’m aware that you can’t take it too far. There’s got to be certain key elements. “New Song” has got to have that synth riff that sounds roughly like that. It’s sort of cornerstoned the people to trigger the memory of that time. There are other things you can play with, the drum sound, the bass sound, the structure of the song. I’ve got technology that allows me to do harmonies live on stage triggered by midi. “Things Can Only Get Better” had a fantastic remix by Cedric Gervais. We start off with a song quite like the record and then go into the big room, house version of the song which is a lot of fun. I’m certainly open to that.

MR: Where are you as a songwriter now?

HJ: It’s almost about ignoring what you’ve done before. How do you feel? What subject matter comes up from the way that you are looking at the world? I’m aware that the biggest part of my audience is probably in their mid-to-late forties, what sort of things are they going through in their lives? All of those sorts of things are going through my mind. I think an artist should be reflecting the issues that are cropping up for my audience. The audience was garnered from those days in the eighties when they really supported me and they bought my records and I was on the radio all the time and all that stuff. I don’t think you can completely divorce yourself from that, but I think it’s very important to push yourself as a person and a writer, otherwise you’re neglecting your responsibility to your fans, who have invested a lot in you. I bear that in mind. I’m not one of those people who writes and doesn’t care about who’s going to hear it. I do care about who’s going to listen to it.

MR: Howard, what advice do you have for new artists?

HJ: I think that’s a very important question. I think about this a lot. I do try to help young artists and help them to get going and encourage them. One of the things that I’d say is whatever level that you can do your work at, you should do it. If that means that you play your music for a group of friends on a Friday night at a random mate’s house, then do that, because that’s being an artist. In the process of doing that, you will then discover if you really like doing it, if you’ll take it any further, which things work and which things don’t, and then you can develop it from there. But don’t think that you have to start by being on stage at Madison Square Garden. At whatever level you can do your work, do it at that level and it will evolve from there. And the second thing is, don’t compare yourself to anyone else. There’s always going to be somebody who’s way better at writing or way better at playing the keyboard or whatever than you, and there’s going to be a lot of people who are not going to be as good as you. Don’t take into account either of those, just do what you uniquely do. Just really believe in that. I know that’s hard, but that’s what you have to do and to stick to that, you have to constantly work on it. Otherwise, you just won’t do anything.

MR: [laughs] The fear of failure is paralyzing. Even the fear of success.

HJ: Yeah. I think mainly the fear of failure is the big thing, but you know, that’s what the battle always is for artists. We have to overcome it.

MR: Are you in a constant state of self-improvement?

HJ: Absolutely. It’s just central to me to try to improve as a person and as a human being, to improve the way that you interact with other and that you respect others. It’s a life’s work, but I really feel that that is such a great motivating force to get up every day and try and improve. Every aspect of one’s life, your great work, your dealings with other people, your health, try and really move it all forward.

MR: How will you Engage us in the future?

HJ: I’ve got a ten-year plan to do three more pieces related to engage. I want one to be about transformation, the next one to be about dialog and communication, and the third one to be about being aware of being a global citizen. I’ve just got some loose themes at the moment, and engage is the start of that process. So I’m giving myself a challenge to create those, and then in ten years’ time I’ll perform them all together. [laughs]

MR: As a global citizen, how do you feel the globe’s doing?

HJ: We’ve got huge problems, and everyone is very much focusing on the problems. I think it’s important to also remember all of the great things that are going on as well. An example for me is I attended a TEDx day in London on the weekend, it was like nineteen people talking about their lives and how they are making a difference in society. It was absolutely inspirational. It just reminded me, and I’m sure everyone else who was there, that there are all these great people doing amazing things and that we need to remember that, too. There’s problems, yeah, and we’ll solve them, but there’s also amazing, great people doing incredible things, too.

MR: If someone wakes up and immediately wants to change and evolve, what are a couple of things that person can start doing?

HJ: Wow, that’s a question. I practice Buddhism, so I chant every day to raise my life’s state and my outlook on life to a point where I’m trying to view everything as a potential possibility to create value. That’s what I do. I know there’s many ways of doing that, but I personally think it’s quite good to have a method and a strategy for developing a positive outlook on your life. That’s my way of doing it, I chant and I study Buddhism.

MR: And I imagine all of that has worked its way into Engage?

HJ: Yes, that’s right, it’s all in there. I tried to include the themes of respecting each other and cherishing the person in front of you, having dialogs with as many people as possible, creating friendships; I see those as the ways to change the bigger picture. If we make the change within ourselves and our environment then that spreads. That’s the most solid way of creating solid change. That’s my belief.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne

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A Conversation with Martin Sexton

Mike Ragogna: Martin, what was the grand plan behind your latest release, Mixtape Of The Open Road?

Martin Sexton: I set out wanting to make a concept record. It was going to be a bluegrass thing or a traditional rock thing or a vintage country thing, but as the songs came they pointed in twelve different directions, so I went with that flow where the concept is a mixtape. It has Nashville twang, bombastic rock, swingy jazz, folk, soul, and so on.

MR: What are a couple of your favorite stories behind some of these songs and their creation?

MS: One of the first songs written for this record was “Remember That Ride.” My friend Ned Claflin had to twist my arm to write it with him. He came to me with the chorus about inventing and building this fantasy, futuristic, magical carnival ride. I just wasn’t feeling it, but because I have so much respect and faith in his ideas I took a little leap and went with it. As it sat in my notebook and on our work tape, it was just okay. Since I wasn’t that attached to the tune, I took a real departure production-wise from my usual singer-songwriter thing and just played it live with fuzz bass and distorted drums. That’s all it took to make this track practically sing it self. Take one was the magical take, and now I love the song.

MR: Studio versus live, which kind of recordings do you prefer making?

MS: The short answer is I love them equally. The not-so-short answer is I enjoy the opportunity to create in studio. The temptation there is always to add more because you can, with all the tracks and technology available. To avoid that I try to keep everything live as possible when I’m in session. For me this helps escape over-production or sterilization, allowing for mistakes that often times become favorite moments on a record. The live show is it’s own universe. The immediacy and spontaneity on stage with a thousand people singing in harmony is like church. And I’ve never attempted to duplicate the sound of a record live. I use the songs like monkey bars that I play on differently every night.

MR: Jackson Browne’s Running On Empty album was really a document of his time on the road as opposed to just being a “live” album. Just curious, what do you think about that album’s significance? Do you feel that you’ve created a prototype with this album that might inspire others?

MS: I love that record. What has influenced me most on that is David Lindley’s lap steel playing. I find myself singing his lines when I scat. A lot of my vocal decoration–the notes I sing between phrases–I can attribute to his sense of melody. When I first met David and told him this, he just laughed and humbly credited Lowell George for influencing him. I’ve always been inspired by mixtapes given to me. Hopefully, this album will inspire others.

MR: You have been called fiercely indie. How has today’s music business realities changed or evolved how you approach rolling out your releases?

MS: I’ve been indie since ’02. Wow, what a great time to be here. The digital era has really democratized the world in ways never seen before. So many avenues have opened up in the past decade that allow listeners to decide for themselves what they want to hear, buy, or share. While my label (KTR) still rolls out records in a traditional fashion including physical units to retail with more and more vinyl, the combination of this with digital, streaming, radio spins, and touring keeps the music flowing better than ever.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

MS: Frank Zappa said shut up and play your guitar. To that, I’ll add shut up and sing, remaining true to your heart all the way.

MR: Looking at your catalog to this point, how would you describe what you’ve created? Beyond Mixtape Of The Road, might you have a favorite album or song/recording that you’ve created?

MS: Chris Smither had it right when he said to me, songs are kind of like kids, some of them grow up and get an education and send checks home to daddy and some are still just flipping burgers, but I love them all equally.

MR: Rumor has it you recorded a One Direction song. You recorded a One Direction song?

MS: Yeah, my daughter heard from a friend of hers that Harry Styles follows me on Twitter. She then dared me to cover a song. She played me “Story of My Life” and I really dug it so I did a homespun video of it to share on facebook and whatever, then recorded it during my Sirius XM session in New York the next day.

MR: What does the future look like for you? Any projects in the works or anything on the personal side you want to focus on?

MS: The next year is pretty much charted out for me on the road working the Mixtape album. In addition to that I will be working on renewal and rebuilding and what’s most important, my family. We lost our home recently to a fire. Sometimes it takes catastrophic events to remind us what is most important. As we stood there and watched a lifelong collection of things go up in a massive fury of flames, all that mattered was that we were safe and alive. We are truly blessed, not only with friends and family, but fans who continue to inspire me with their love, support, and example of unity. They come from all walks of life, but set differences aside and show up with their beautiful voices singing as one.

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A Conversation with Chadwick Stokes

Mike Ragogna: Chad, what is The Horse Comanche’s origin story?

Chadwick Stokes: I didn’t know when I when I wrote the song that there really was a horse named Comanche. I grew up with horses and love to ride so for me it’s a metaphor for being alive. The song looks into the departure of a cosmonaut from his lover.

MR: What was it like recording with Sam Beam and how does his involvement affect your style or sound?

CS: He was great, very thorough and genuinely into the whole process. We delved into the meanings of certain songs and he encouraged me to do more finger-picking, less strumming.

MR: Iron And Wine and Lucius guest on the album. Were there specific things you wanted them to bring to The Horse Comanche?

MR: One of the album’s featured tracks, “Mother Maple,” features interesting production elements like a choir and old sample machine. What was the creative process like for the whole project?

CS: We wanted to make the best album that we could by exploring the potential that the musicians and studio had to offer and worrying about recreating it for the live show later.

MR: “Our Lives Our Time” talks to intolerance. Is that part of your creative process, to inform as well as entertain?

CS: Not really. I’m just singing about things that bother me, in that case, or inspire me in other cases. I guess if anything, I want to relate.

MR: From the artist’s own perspective, how does this album compare to your previous works?

CS: It’s just another chapter I suppose. Sam and Brian’s imprint probably sets it apart more than anything else. Sam’s back up vocals are really special and Brian’s sound pallet is really varied.

MR: How do you ideally see your musical career commencing? Like, what’s the fantasy of your life about three to five years from now?

CS: I’d like to work on a rock opera/film that features different musician friends of mine. I’d like to play rallies and protests and contribute to the movement for peace and justice. I’d like to see gay marriage accepted everywhere, the national abolishment of the death penalty, stricter rules in gun acquisition and a higher minimum wage.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

CS: Give your music away and play as much as you can. And stay awake behind the wheel.

MR: What’s the best advice you were ever given and did you take it?

CS: Don’t sweat the small stuff, from actor Chad Everett by way of news personality Ron Simonsen, otherwise known as Dr. Ron the Actor. I’ve tried.

MR: Anything have your attention other than the new album?

CS: I have a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old at home who are keeping me busy. My wife and I also are involved in our organization Calling All Crows, which, this year, is focusing on women and children who have been displaced in Syria.

MR: Anything you want to say to Sam Beam right about now?

CS: I found your pen.

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A Conversation with Erik Deutsch

Mike Ragogna: Erik, for Outlaw Jazz, what gave you the idea to merge genres and what’s the story behind this album?

Erik Deutsch: Hey Mike, nice to make your acquaintance. It’s fair to say that this album represents a lifelong journey, and that the merging of the country and jazz styles is a summary of my musical path, to this point. Although I was raised mostly in Washington D.C., my mother is from Nashville. In 1982 dad was offered a job there, so we picked up and left for 5 years–kindergarten to 4th grade for me. During my time in Nashville, I started piano lessons, heard country music everywhere, and attended performances by artists like Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Brenda Lee, Barbara Mandrell, and Waylon Jennings. I attended the Ensworth school, as did my younger brother, who became good friends with a classmate, Shooter Jennings. I occasionally found myself over at Shooter’s house, or him at ours, and sometimes crossing paths with his folks–Waylon and Jessi Colter. In third grade, we had a songwriting contest. I penned a ditty about a “hoopsnake”–a mythical reptile who bites his tail and rolls along like a wheel. I won the contest…and the prize? A songwriting session with a professional guitarist/songwriter, John Knowles, and a performance at the Country Music Hall of Fame. I count that as my first gig.

Fast forward 25 years to New York City. I hear through my old Nashville friends that Shooter has moved to New York, and that he’s looking for a studio to make some music. I put in a call to a friend and voila, a few months later, we’re sitting in my living room talking about making music and putting a new band together. Shooter and I hadn’t seen each other since grade school, but it can be easy catching up with old friends, and this was certainly the case. That led to two studio records with Shooter–Family Man and The Other Life, both of which I’m very proud, and a couple years on the road, including two visits to The Tonight Show and a performance on Letterman.

We listened to endless music on the bus, with Shooter, Jon Graboff, and Tony Leone really schooling me with their knowledge of country musicians. I began to realize that there is a wealth of excellent guitar players who recorded instrumental country music (Roy Buchannan, Chet Atkins, Danny Gatton, Jim Campilongo, etc) but that the list of pianist who did the same is entirely too short. Thus the the idea for Outlaw Jazz was born… to make a record of genre-defying jazz music influenced by country rhythms, harmonies, and beats, with great players and singers, and little bit of outlaw attitude.

I found a new label, Cumberland Brothers Music, in Nashville. It’s run by three gentlemen that went to the Ensworth School with Shooter and I, and we were off and running.

MR: How did you pull together your guest roster that includes Shooter Jennings and Victoria Reed?

ED: Shooter, being such an integral part of the creation of Outlaw Jazz, had to contribute to the music. I chose to record the song “Whistlers and Jugglers” with him. It was written by Shel Silverstein, recorded by Waylon, and one that we had played on the road with Shooter on a nightly basis. It’s a beautiful, evocative song, that deserves a wider audience in my opinion.

Victoria is an up and coming artist who everybody will probably know about in the next couple of years. She’s got a fantastic first album full of thoughtful, well-written songs that will be released sometime this year, and just spent the entire fall opening up for Citizen Cope on his US tour. I love female vocalists, and her performance on Bo Diddley’s “Dearest Darling” adds so much fun and life to the record.

MR: How was Outlaw Jazz recorded? How did the material come together?

ED: Outlaw Jazz was recorded at Mission Sound in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I launched a Kickstarter campaign (my first) and found overwhelming support for the project from friends, family, and fans. The material came together like most of my records: a few songs that had been waiting to be recorded for a while, a couple choice covers to feature our guests artists and bring a recognizable element to the music, and a couple more originals that rounded out the overall concept and balance of the record.

MR: Are there any moments on the album that you’re especially proud of?

ED: Fortunately, there’s quite a few! I love the rhythm section’s swing on “Outlaw Boogie”; the jam at the end of “Whistlers”; Jon Stewart’s sax on “Dearest Darlin”; the sense of space on “Wild Horses”; and the overall execution of the trickiest song on the album, “Pickle.”

MR: What do you think of the state of jazz these days? Who are some of your favorite contemporaries?

ED: I think jazz is in a great place musically, but a bit of a weird place culturally. There’s a great wealth of creative, intelligent, forward-thinking music coming out of the jazz community; jazz mainstays like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Hunter, Fred Hersch, Bill Frisell, Wayne Shorter, Art Lande, Steven Bernstein, and Jon Scofield and continue to make relevant, progressive jazz music. Newer established artists are doing the same: Jason Moran, Brad Mehldau, Ben Allison, Ben Perowsky, Kneebody, Jenny Scheinman, Rudresh Manthappa, Allison Miller, Ron Miles, Myra Melford, Ben Goldberg, and Scott Amendola are some of my favorites.

Unfortunately, people aren’t sure how to classify the music, and aren’t especially good at listening to, buying, and supporting it either. Hopefully the extremely high quality of the art will catch up in popularity and ‘hipness’ in the eyes of the music world sometime soon.

MR: Will Outlaw Jazz serve as a prototype as to where you’re headed with your material in the future?

ED: It’s hard to say to say right now what the next album will sound like, but I think this record is definitely more than just a “concept album”–it’s music that i’m feeling in my heart and really enjoying performing for and sharing with the listeners.

MR: Erik, what advice do you have for new artists?

ED: Practice hard, pay tribute to the history of the music, always focus on the developing your personal sound, support your local scene and your peers, don’t worry about genres, and stay positive!

MR: What’s the best advice ever given to you and did you take it?

ED: At a rehearsal with Ron Miles, I asked, “What should I play on this song”? He answered “I hired you, Erik… why would i tell you what to play? I’m interested in what you are hearing.” Great advice from a great bandleader… I always have it in mind.

MR: What’s the plan after Outlaw Jazz?

ED: We’ll be playing shows all year to support the record, right now performances in NYC, Nashville, Toronto, Colorado, Mexico, California, Seattle, and DC are on the radar). Then on to the next challenge and hopefully some more good music!Entertainment – The Huffington Post
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If there’s one thing missing from a good food truck, it’s a pair of chandelier earrings and a colorful scarf.

I enjoy a good hunk of hamburger just as much as the next mountain lion, and I know that healthy food is essential to our ability to, you know, exist. But if given the choice to splurge on food or fashion, I’m going to pick the one with staying power. The one you can use over and over again.

I’m frugal like that.

You can enjoy tapas only once. But you can enjoy a new top dozens of times, depending on how messy you are with that hamburger and how masterful you are with the stain stick.

The food truck caravan has led to a new kind of mobile business: fashion trucks.

These boutiques on wheels began popping up around Colorado a few years ago but recently have picked up speed — so much, in fact, that fellow truckers are expecting about 10 new fashion trucks by this summer.

One of the newest (and one of my favorites) is The Street Boutique, which claims to be the first fashion truck in the metro area to specialize exclusively in trendy, reasonably priced women’s clothing and accessories.

Lindsey Trees, founder and owner, calls it a “mini Nordstrom in a truck.” And, in fact, she sells some of the same brands you can find in the high-end department store, as well as a few other European lines you can’t find anywhere else in the state.

Most clothes sell for $ 40 to $ 60.

Trees opened The Street Boutique in August and has focused her random and scheduled stops and private parties in Denver, but you’ll see her in Boulder and Broomfield soon, she says. Keep your eyes open for her teal and pink van near area malls, or invite her to your next girly gathering and get 10 percent of the sales in credit toward your purchases.

One reason people don’t update their wardrobe is because they don’t have time to shop. Another challenge with shopping is that department stores can feel overwhelming, or people simply don’t enjoy shopping.

The fashion truck solves that by bringing a smaller, less-intimidating selection right to you.

sons for their popularity, according to Trees — is the cost to rent retail space in desirable Colorado locations.

“Instead of fronting 100 grand to get a store up and running, we could buy a truck on Craigslist,” Trees says.

Pearl Street alone has recently seen a string of high-profile closures of longtime shops, including the Boulder Army Store, whose owner cited both a decline in downtown shoppers and the price of rent among contributing factors.

In addition, Trees, a mother of two, says she needed a flexible schedule, not traditional “retail hours.” She parks her van at her house and can organize inventory and steam clothes right there after her children go to bed. She can close shop any time and pick up her kids at school.

But selling in different cities does require multiple tax licenses, she says. And since the industry is new, she and the groundbreakers still are carving out the niche. Trees says she tends to make more money at organized events than pop-ups. (Although isn’t the spontaneity of a fashion truck part of the allure?)

From a shopper’s perspective, Boulder stylist Marian Rothschild says she believes a fashion truck would be best for accessories, such as scarves, gloves, jewelry and handbags. But be wary of making bigger purchases without being sure how the clothes look on you in a mirror with good lighting.

“Be realistic about what you’re purchasing,” which might very well be “fast clothes off a truck,” says Rothschild, the author of the book Look Good Now and Always.

On the other hand, she adds, “It can be fun and easy, just like getting great deals from street vendors in funky neighborhoods of New York City. Who doesn’t love that?”

Trees says she’s glad more fashion trucks are emerging; she’s not worried about competition. Some shoppers still are cautious about the idea of buying their jeans in the back of a vehicle. The trucks do the best when there’s a group parked together.

Last week I stumbled upon Variety‘s positive review of Diner, a musical running for a limited time at Arlington’s Signature Theater. The production, based on Barry Levinson’s 1982 film, Diner, teamed Levinson up with Sheryl Crow. For the first time, Crow has scored a musical, and the result is a sold-out show for seven weeks. As I read the review, I battled conflicting emotions: happy for the play’s positive reception and angry that I wasn’t on the East Coast to see it — disappointed that I’d miss this latest turn in Sheryl Crow’s refreshingly unpredictable and musically liberated career.

Sometime during the fall of 1993, I was driving home from middle school with my mom listening to WNEW, New York City’s now-defunct legendary rock ‘n’ roll radio station. At the time, it played mostly classic rock standards, but on rare occasions a contemporary artist would slip through into rotation. These were still the days when DJs could handpick songs for their shifts and, if a new artist filtered into sets of Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones or Eric Clapton, listeners noticed. I was sitting in the front seat of the car and had already begun flipping through my math homework when I heard Scott Muni’s gravely voice interrupt his daily 3 p.m. block of afternoon music. “This is the first time we’re playing this here on WNEW,” he began. I could hear him fumbling with the plastic CD case and flipping through the liner notes to read from the track listing. “She’s Sheryl Crow, a singer from California, and this is her single, ‘Leaving Las Vegas.'”

The drums started, a simple beat amid handclaps. But when Sheryl Crow started to sing, the crackling rawness of her voice broke the song open and out poured a barely optimistic tale of a woman whose desperation to leave one life behind allowed for splinters of hope to start anew. It was a mesmerizing sound, a captivating tale — and something that filled a critical void in contemporary music. By the early-1990s, I was conveniently flopping between two musical landscapes: grunge had exploded and permeated my school hallways, but having Baby Boomer parents, I also grew up on the musical greats of the 1960s and 1970s. When I heard “Leaving Las Vegas” for the first time, it was as if these two musical eras had collapsed into one.

A month later, when I bought Tuesday Night Music Club at the local record store, I felt as though I had finally found my music. The album was a whirlwind to listen to — a fluid trip through sounds and emotions that had the lyrical angst of the mid-1990s Gen X culture, but the music of a modern-day Big Pink. “The Na Na Song” spit out a force of cosmic-manic energy that somehow balanced “I Shall Believe” with enough poignancy to close the record with a pleading hymnal beyond just a gentle ballad. I’d listen for hours, painting pictures in my imagination of the characters in those songs. I promised myself that when I got older, I would travel through life to find my own set of characters — to grasp the excitement and adventure that Tuesday Night Music Club awakened in me.

For the next 20 years, Sheryl Crow’s music played against the background of my life, becoming a steady companion through adolescence and into adulthood. There was the summer after high school graduation when my friends and I sang along to “Everyday Is a Winding Road” as we whipped our cars around deserted country roads into the early morning hours. Or the night of September 11, 2001 when I left a candlelight vigil and cried in my car listening to “Riverwide” in the parking lot, too upset to drive. Or those endless months of 14-hour workdays when I walked home from the subway on cold, snowy Brooklyn nights listening to “There Goes the Neighborhood.” Or the day that I moved to Los Angeles and played “Long Road Home” while I carried boxes into a new apartment in a new city. Every album was like a new book with each song telling a unique story of a specific time and place — sometimes through the linear reality of everyday life and others through an existential journey of amorphous self-realization.

I thought about these memories as I learned more about Diner and read about the “delicious harmonies… enhanced by insightful lyrics” that Crow had written for the 1950’s rock musical. I wondered how, in this post-MTV age where it is rare for musicians to maintain careers beyond a flash of massive popularity, Sheryl Crow has navigated decades-long relevance within a swiftly changing musical and cultural landscape.

Sure, there’s the versatility of her songwriting — and years of touring and promotions. But, there is also a willingness to stray from any singular musical path that audiences have come to expect from Sheryl Crow. This freedom to take risks — to release a contemporary country album on the heels of a Memphis R&B soul album, to duet with Pavarotti, Loretta Lynn and Kid Rock — has led to one of the more winding musical paths of any singer-songwriter in the past 20 years. And somewhere along the way, audiences began to invest in the mystery of what twist may come next, because what is playing in a diner in Arlington today could become a new masterpiece tomorrow.

Pack your bags Darren Sharper … ’cause you’ve just been ordered to go to New Orleans!!!TMZ Sports has learned … a district court judge has ordered the L.A. County Sheriff to “surrender the body of Darren Sharper” to the U.S. Marshall so he can be…

'The Road to Red Rocks' consists of official live footage directed and shot by FRED & NiCK at two sold out concerts at the beautiful amphitheatre set amongst the Red Rocks of Colorado, USA. In addition to the stunning live footage, are exclusive interviews and footage with the band recorded whilst on Gentlemen of the Road touring circuit.

6 Shore Road is a playful yet edgy swimwear and apparel brand that was founded by the renown designer, Pooja Kharbanda. Pooja was born in India, spent her childhood in Hong Kong and Panama City, Panama and infuses her design inspiration from old and new travels into her swimwear brand that transitions from day to night.

Water on the Road, a live-concert film directed by Brendan Canty of Fugazi and Christoph Green features performances from Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder's August 16 and 17, 2008 solo tour engagements at Washington, D.C.'s Warner Theatre. The film features a live performance of "You're True" from the Grammy nominated album Ukulele Songs as well as a mix of Pearl Jam catalog, covers and songs from Vedder's critically acclaimed, award-winning solo record, Into The Wild. The film also includes appearances by Liam Finn and EJ Barnes who supported Vedder during his 2008 solo tour.

This first live album from The Albion Christmas Band is a very welcome addition and possibly an antidote (to some elements of) to the festive period. Recorded live at the Kings Place in LondonMusic-News.com RSS feedJoin Group Chat!

Mike Ragogna: What gave you the idea to merge music with yoga for your Soulshine tour?

Michael Franti: I started practicing yoga on tour about thirteen years ago as a way to really just take care of myself as I was going in and out of airports and tour busses and doing shows and promotion and staying up late and eating bad restaurant food, et cetera. As I was touring I would practice at a different studio in every city that I went to in the world and I started inviting teachers and fans to come and practice with me before our shows, so we’d do it backstage or in a parking lot or in a park nearby. Last year, we played out at Red Rocks and we invited people to come in the afternoon before the show and practice yoga. We expected about two hundred people would be there and I believe two thousand showed up. We were really overwhelmed by this, so we thought, “This summer, let’s just do this at every one of our shows.” At every show on the Soulshine Tour, myself and some of the other artists will be playing acoustically in the afternoon and there will be a mass yoga class and then it will turn into a proper crazy rock concert after that.

MR: You have Baron Baptiste and Seane Corn as a couple of your yoga teachers. Did you already know them prior to the tour?

MF: I’ve known Seane and Baron for a while, many years now. They’re really inspirational in terms of the way they take yoga off the mat and into the world. I thought they’d be the perfect fit for this because whether you’ve practiced yoga for decades or whether it’s your first time on the yoga mat or whether you just want to come and hear some acoustic music and hear somebody that’s really inspiring speak both Baron and Seane and all of the other teachers really fit that bill.

MR: Is the connection between music and spirituality something you came to intellectually or just something you’ve always felt during your creative process?

MF: I’ve always felt it. I grew up playing music in our church when I was a kid. Most of the time, I didn’t really feel a connection to my heart, my body, my mind and the message that the church was delivering. It always seemed like this dichotomy that was there, but yoga is really the study of the self. We put ourselves into challenging positions and we learn to breathe through it and not become immediately reactive to everything that takes place in our lives. It’s something that really helps me as a father, as an artist, as an advocate for social change in the world, and even as a businessperson. Being able to focus and see the goal that I have ahead of me and be able to not be always in a state of panic and stress is what yoga has taught me.

MR: So far, you’ve had hit singles and albums and overall, an amazing career. Do you feel that it was more about intuition and following your own path as opposed to being molded by music biz standards?

MF: Yeah, for sure. I’ve always been somebody who wrote about the things I felt strongly about and made music because I thought it was exciting and it made a difference in my life. I’ve never really written songs that were just like, “Let’s see, what can we do that’s a hit?” or “What’s going to copy everything that’s out there?” I’ve never done that. Putting this tour together has been sort of the same thing, it’s just been a love of mine and I thought, I’ve loved yoga for so long, I’ve always combined it for the last thirteen years on tour, let’s just do it in a way that hopefully can get it out to more people.

MR: Is your band integrating the yoga as well?

MF: Two of the other members of our band practice yoga regularly, and all the other bands that are on the tour with me have members of the band that practice yoga, too. We’re hoping that through this tour we’ll get the other guys off their butts and onto yoga mats.

MR: I’m imagining guests like Brett Dennen are practicing yoga.

MF: Yeah. Brett is somebody who I’ve seen go through an amazing transformation in his career. He’s still a very young artist, but I met him when he was a teenager and saw him perform, and then for a number of years I think he went through the same thing every artist goes through when you start touring, eating bad food all the time, you’re out on the road all the time, you’re not getting enough sleep, and I remember seeing him and thinking, “Man, Brett.” He’d put on some weight, he wasn’t looking so healthy. Then, the next year I saw him and he’d started working out, changing his nutrition, practicing yoga, he really took it to heart. Now he’s one of the healthiest musicians that I know. It seems like an obvious thing, but it really isn’t. For those of us who didn’t get into music to get rich and retire, but who got into it because we admired John Lee Hooker and we admire the Rolling Stones and the other artists that have gone on and on and perservered, The Grateful Dead and artists like that who evolve and keep growing and changing, in order to do that you’ve got to be alive. I’ve just gone through some really intense times in my own family, my son who’s fifteen was diagnosed with a very rare kidney disorder, he’s lost fifty percent of his kidney function at age fifteen. As a family we’ve all taken it upon ourselves to say, “How can we best support our son?” but also we’ve gained a deeper appreciation for how fragile life is. I think that one of the great things about yoga is how it helps us to really look carefully at all aspects of our lives, the way that we treat other people, the way we take care of ourselves, the way that we treat the world.

MR: It’s almost like the band is having a spiritual experience on stage for the fans. Do you feel like that’s what’s going on?

MF: The word “spiritual” for me and for a lot of people means “religious,” almost, and I’d hate to compare what we do to anything religious because it’s still at the end of the day a rock concert. What I think is that all music, whether it’s mine or anybody else’s, opens a window to the soul. There’s times when our body feels run-down and our mind feels taxed and we feel like we can’t go any further, and it’s our soul that kicks in and goes, “You know what? You can love a little more. You can go a little bit further in this relationship, you can try a little bit harder.” That’s what music does. It’s amazing when you do that with large groups of people. The only other experience I can think of that compares to that is either a sporting event, it’s the World Cup and we’re all cheering for one team, but in the World Cup there’s always a loser. One team’s happy and the other team goes away feeling sad. But in music, everybody comes together in a field–we all dance, we shout, we sing, we throw our hands up and we let go of whatever it is that we carried in. I love to see people walk out looking like they’re standing a little bit taller, they have a little smile on their face, a little more ease in their life. That’s what I love about it most.

MR: With Soulshine, it seems like you’re expanding the concept of a concert with Michael Franti & Spearhead and friends to it being more of a lifestyle thing–you know, like going to a Dead or Jimmy Buffett event.

MF: Yeah, I think so. Just in comparison to when I first started touring twenty five years ago, we’d stop at gas stations on the road and try to find something healthy to eat and there were Slurpees and Big Gulps and burgers. The best thing that we could ever find at a gas station was like Saltine crackers and a can of sardines or something. But now you go all across the country and in every city, you can find independent grocers that are bringing locally grown food. You find people all across the country who are becoming more conscious of what they put into their body, what they consume, and the companies they support doing that. I think that’s the lifestyle that we try to encourage.

MR: Michael, what advice do you have for new artists?

MF: The main thing is to follow your heart and write music that means something to you. The more meaningful it is to you, the deeper it’s going to touch whoever it is that it means something to them. When I was just coming up in punk rock the lead singer of D.O.A, his name was Joey Shithead, we would always stay at people houses and we would ask at the end of the night, “is there some place to stay?” and they would always make us spaghetti or something and cook for us and let us sleep on the floors with our sleeping bags, and Joey said, “No matter whose house you stay at, make sure you always wash the dishes and they’ll always have you back.” I’ve always thought about that in every aspect of my life, no matter if it was the person at the check-in counter at the airport or if it was somebody who was helping us get all our guitars into the hotel or if it was the first fan in line at the show or the last bartender to leave at the end of the night. Always make sure that they felt like you treated them as if you were coming into their home. Leave their home in good shape. That’s what keeps artists able to have a job year after year with their fans, the venues, the labels, radio stations, whoever it is. Treat people with respect.

MR: Do you think picture Soulshine having an even broader reach next time out?

MF: Yeah, we hope that it can grow and that people will have a great experience this year that will take us into years to come.

Transcribed By Galen Hawthorne

A Conversation with Night Ranger’s Kelly Keagy

Mike Ragogna: So is it true? Is Night Ranger truly back with a new studio album called High Road.

Kelly Keagy: What about that!

MR: It seems like you’re “Coming Home” with this one, Kelly.

KK: Hey, that sounds like a title! Let’s write that thing! [laughs]

MR: Yeah, and dude, there should be a premier video too.

KK: Not with that song, though. We did two videos a couple months ago for the single “High Road” and another one called “Knock Knock,” which is a harder track. But we were just guessing about the tracks so we just picked the first two songs. But we’re really excited about this record because I think we did some good work as far as the song. It took us a long time to do it because we started the record and then we went on tour. We’d come back every six weeks and go, “Oh yeah, we’ve got a record to finish!” We started out with about seven songs to begin with and then we’d come back to it and tweak it and just keep working on it throughout the summer and into the fall and finally we got to the point where we just wanted to give up—no, I’m just kidding. It was kind of a weird situation, doing a record and being on tour, but I’ve heard about it in the past happening on some classic albums.

MR: I’m imagining the tour also stimulated the creativity for the album.

KK: The thing is, too, it’s all-inclusive with this band. We’ve got to do it as good as possible, with all the energy that we have. The thing is, after thirty one years you try and figure out, “What are we going to write about?” We can’t still write about chasing women and driving fast cars. With this record it was good that we took a long time so we could go, “Yeah, this title isn’t great” or “This verse isn’t great,” or this guitar line or these changes in the song, let’s change it up and go back and redo the demos and figure out which arrangements work great and then do it for real.

MR: Exactly, the song becomes road tested.

KK: Yeah. The thing is, too, you just don’t know. When you’re in the middle of writing something you just don’t know. So the fact that you get a chance to go back and re-look at it a few times is a good thing. This band’s always been about the song, it’s always about having as good a song as possible, and if it’s not great then there’s got to be something musical that’s good about it. But usually it’s all about a good chorus and a good melody and something decent to say.

MR: Kelly, it’s now thirty-one years for the band. That’s an amazing thing, isn’t it? And Night Ranger seemed to have had hits right out of the box with “Sister Christian.” So it’s thirty-one years later, what do you think about all that?

KK: I think we’re so fortunate and lucky to have had a chance, because a lot of times bands don’t click with the public even though they might be amazing. There are so many bands that get a shot and it just doesn’t click. We’re so lucky to be able to have that happen with us, and like I said, the songs just seemed to click with the audience and make a connection. And that was all the touring we did and all the bands we were on with, KISS and ZZ Top and 38 Special and all those bands that broke our career. The three of us, Brad [Gillis], Jack [Blades] and myself had been together even longer than that. We were in another band together in 1977, ’78, ’79. We’d been together for a really long time. We know each other really well, we know what works musically and song-wise, we’ve just been very fortunate and lucky to have the three of us stay together and enjoy playing together as much as we do.

MR: Now I mentioned “Sister Christian,” but of course you’ve also collected hits in “When You Close Your Eyes,” “Rock In America,” “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me,” “Sing Me Away”… I think sometimes when you have such a monster hit, you get branded for that particular song. I think maybe Night Ranger took a hit because you had such a huge…well…”hit.”

KK: That’s what happens. It happens with a lot of bands, but we look at it as a blessing. It can be a curse as well, because people forget you’re a kickass rock band. I think that’s the driving force sometimes, when we play live we come out with that energy because we want to prove that we’re a kickass rock band as well as a hit act and can write hit songs. I think that’s the double-edged sword that you’re dealing with here.

MR: When you look at some of the people you’ve been hanging out with–Mötley Crüe and Ozzy Osbourne and all the guys you talked about before–how much are you influenced by these acts? Do you still find yourself being influenced by others’ music that you like?

KK: Absolutely! All the bands we played with were inspiration for us to continue, too, because all of those bands are still around, too. Early on we played with a version of Black Sabbath that had Ian Gillan in it and I just remember thinking, “Oh my God, Ian Gillan, man. Deep Purple.” Those were some of the early influences, Deep Purple with “Highway Star” and things like that. Those were kind of the inspiration for “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me” and uptempo, kickass rock songs like that. That was it.

MR: Kelly, take us on a little tour of High Road. In your opinion, what are some real classic Night Ranger moments on the album?

KK: I think what we did–and we did this on the last record Somewhere In California–we came in with a clean canvas with nothing on it. Usually what we do is we come in with songs, but this time it was just like musical bits. “Oh, I’ve got this riff,” “Oh, I’ve got this chord change for a chorus,” and that was it and we’d just start to build it from there and we would jam. We’d take a break and somebody would come back with some sort of groove or something. For the first two weeks or ten days, Brad and Jack and myself, that’s what we did. We just started to lay down things and keep the recorder going and record every bit and then we’d go back and listen to it. It was kind of interesting to start a record like that with no songs and then to end up with all these great songs and something to be proud of. It was really a unique experience.

MR: Was this approach different than how the other albums were made?

KK: Right, it’s totally different. Every album we’ve ever done except for the last two we’ve always had songs prewritten. This time the three of us collaborated on every single song and even the newer members, Eric Levy and Joel Hoekstra brought stuff. Joel came up with the riff for that song “I’m Coming Home,” and Eric Levy had the piano part to “Only For You Only.” We had a couple of things like that where they brought in some surprises.

MR: Do you think collaborations and what you’re doing these days rejuvenated the band? Is the band now a Night Ranger 2.0?

KK: [laughs] I think so, man. We were really surprised to, because we were out of our element at that point. We were like, “Where are the songs?” These are just musical bits. It allowed us to kind of jump outside of our comfort zone and realize this might be a new thing for us. The last record was really special to us, too, and then this one is even better as far as some of the musical moments in this album. It was really nice to realize, “Wow, this idea’s really working!”

MR: Perhaps when you started out, it was all about fast cars and women. But what do you feel are the main themes in your music now?

KK: You know, I just think that with a little more maturity, our perspectives just changed about life and relationships and stuff like that. We still like chasing women. We still like driving cars fast, that’s not going to change ever. What rock ‘n’ roll’s about is a good time, we’re still about that, we still love that, that’s what’s kept us going this whole time, we love life and where it’s taken us and we’re just going to stay on that. That’s really what life’s about anyway, trying to be happy. That’s what we’re trying to do, and we’re trying to bring the audience along with us.

MR: So you’re based in Nashville, Kelly. That’s quite a long way from San Francisco.

KK: [laughs] I moved out here about twelve years ago just because I wanted a change of scenery. I didn’t want to stay in LA or San Francisco. It wasn’t because I didn’t like it anymore, I just wanted a change. But I didn’t want to move to New York, which I love, I could live there in a second, I just wanted a change of scene. A lot of my buddies are out here, Mark Slaughter’s out here, some of my good old writing buddies, Bruce Gaitsch, some of these guys moved out from LA twenty five years ago and when I was ready for a change I just gave them a shout and said, “What’s going on out there?” and they said, “There’s a great community out here, good songwriters, a good creative community.”

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

KK: I think that what’s kept us going, and I think it’s probably a rule is just to have a love of what you’re doing. You’ve got to have a love for the music that you’re playing and where you’re at that point in your career. I think that if you have a preconceived idea like, “I want to be a star,” then that’s good, you’ve got to have that a little bit, but it’s got to come from the heart, man. There’s got to be a good, solid base in wanting to be a good musician and a good artist, you know?

MR: Yeah though I think some TV shows like to glamorize a culture of celebrity rather than creativity, making it a bit confusing as to how to prioritize things.

KK: I just think that we all came up in those ranks of playing six nights a week in clubs for ten or twelve years and developed our style and played different styles of music. It’s a different world, but I think there are a lot of talented people out there, and I think that the media focuses on the pranks and the goofiness, which is entertaining, but that’s not going to hold my attention for too long.

MR: Where does Night Ranger stand in the metal world these days? Or do you think of Night Ranger as something a broader now?

KK: I don’t know, that’s really hard for me to say. We’re rolling along here, thirty-one years later. There’s still a lot of people that enjoy our music and that’s what we’re really about, that moment of trying to capture the audience and bring it in to us when we play live as well as with records. We want to see if we can keep our audience interested in what we do musically, lyrically, melodically. We’re really fortunate in that way that it’s still going on.

MR: What is the biggest surprise in the thirty-one years of Night Ranger?

KK: Our music still gets played on the radio, still gets put in movies and stuff like that. Rock Of Ages–the movie and the Broadway show–whoever thought we were going to be Broadway writers? What? Are you kidding me? That alone was a surprise. And the fact that we still go out on stage every night and totally play as hard as we can a hundred and ten percent, I just think that we still love it and there’s not going to be any time soon where we’re going to retire.

MR: Do you ever wander into a store or listen to the car radio and hear “Sister Christian” or any of your older hits, stop what you’re doing and listen?

KK: Oh, of course! A few weeks ago they had a version of “Sister Christian” on Grey’s Anatomy, this young lady Juliette Commagere did a totally new version of it, and the way she was singing it just struck me as, “Wow, this is kind of a new play on this song.” I’m totally blown away that the song has lasted this long and is still out there and still so able to be placed in movies and TV and people are hearing it in a different way. It’s pretty cool.

MR: Do you find yourself incorporating other people’s takes on your music at least into your live performances?

KK: Sure, all the time. We’ve had that song redone a few times over the last twenty years. A group back in the early nineties did a version of it and they added new lyrics into it and it was like, “Whoa, this is wild.”

MR: What does the future bring for Night Ranger?

KK: I hope that we just get a chance to keep making great records like this one and to turn the audience on to a new side of Night Ranger, maybe a little bit older but still as energetic as it’s ever been. I just hope that this record gets out there just so we can show everybody that Night Ranger’s a kick ass rock band.

We go on the road and nab some fornicating French Canadian sluts who are guaranteed to make your cock harder than a frozen ice cap! Don’t let their innocent faces and sweet, sexy accents fool ya. They’re begging to have their pubes thrilled, drilled, and filled!

Set in rural Northern California, Road Queen 21 features four passionate sex scenes along with compelling drama from the ongoing lesbian soap opera. Drifter Deauxma continues her stay in wine country, temporarily anchored by the beautiful and promiscuous women of the town. Some of the women, like Shyla Jennings, are confused about their sexual orientation and require some coaxing, while others, like Kara Price and Syd Blakovich know exactly what they want.